TARGETED ATTACK OF VIRUS

Many computers are being attacked all together that are infected differently. Targeted attacks attempt to infect the network of a single target company or organization, or enter a specially developed Trojan agent on a single server in the organization's network infrastructure.

Who Is The Target?

Cybercriminals generally target companies that process or store information that can be exploited by criminals for personal gain. Typical objectives include:

Banks

Criminals attack the bank's servers or network in order to access information and illegally transfer funds from customers' bank accounts.

Billing companies, such as phone companies

When they choose a billing company for an attack, criminals generally seek to access customer accounts or steal valuable information, such as customer databases, financial information, or technical data.

Bypass corporate security

Because large companies (typically targeted by targeted computer virus attacks) tend to have a high level of IT security, cybercriminals may need to resort to particularly cunning methods. Since most organizations use an antivirus and other measures to protect against external attacks, the criminal can seek help from within the organization:

Phishing

Unknowingly, employees can help the offender by responding to phishing emails, pretending to come from the company's IT department and asking the employee to enter their password to access the company's system to perform tests.

Using a false identity

In some cases, criminals can use personal information they have collected from social networking websites to assume the identity of a coworker to make the phishing request for usernames and passwords appear genuine. This ploy helps prevent employees from being suspicious when asked to enter their password.

Perhaps the most dangerous types of malware writers are hackers and hacker groups who create malicious software programs in an effort to achieve their own specific criminal goals. These cybercriminals create computer viruses and Trojan horse programs that can:

·       Steal access codes to bank accounts

·       Advertise products or services on a victim's computer

·       Illegally using the resources of an infected computer to develop and run:

·       Spam campaigns

·       Distributed network attacks (also called DDoS attacks)

·       Extortion operations

The Reasons Behind Petty Theft

After the advent of Internet services, including mail and web and hosting services, members of the "computing underworld" looked for ways to benefit from these services, without having to pay for them. These petty criminals used specially developed Trojans to steal the login details and password of a legitimate user, or to steal multiple user login details and passwords of multiple infected computers.

Originally, many of these Trojans were written by young people who could not pay for Internet services:

In 1997, Trojans designed to steal AOL passwords emerged.

In 1998, Trojans of this type began to affect other Internet services.

In later years, when the costs of Internet services were reduced, these types of activities began to decline.

Current Threats Associated With Petty Theft

Despite reduced costs associated with Internet services, Trojans that steal passwords for dial-up, AOL, and ICQ access codes, as well as access codes for other services, still represent a significant part of the daily internal flow cyber threats handled by antivirus laboratories. However, additional forms of petty theft have also emerged:

The crooks are dedicated to creating other types of Trojans, which steal account information and key files of various program products and resources from infected computers, for their benefit.

In recent years there has also been a steady increase in the number of Trojans stealing personal information from network games ("virtual property" of games) for unauthorized use or resale.

How to Protect Yourself from Petty Theft?

Antivirus solutions that combine signature-based detection, proactive heuristic analysis, and cloud-assisted technologies can help protect your devices and data from both known Trojans and new or emerging cyber threats.

 

There are various multi-layered antivirus software products (combining powerful technologies that run on your device, plus cloud-assisted services) to better protect the following computers:

Windows PC

Linux computers

Apple mac

Phones

Tablets